Machine-gunners

Description

The U.S. armed forces are always among the
first to make use of the latest weaponry, and at one time that was the Colt Ml895 machine
gun. Its earliest use dates back to the Spanish-American War in 1898, in the battles for Guantanamo
in Cuba.

By the time of the Second World War, the
machine gun of choice was the Browning. Browning machine guns dominated
the infantry divisions of the U.S. Army, and not only during World
War II. From 1922 to 1945,
and then in the Korean War as well, over 350,000 Browning machine guns were put into service.

In August of 1942, a U.S. Infantry Division had 280 guns for 14253 soldiers. A year later, this figure
was 636 guns (45 for every thousand men).